Telecommunications systems, cable televisions systems, and data communication networks use communication networks to rapidly convey large amounts of information between remote points. A communication network may include network elements that route packets through the network. Some network elements may include a distributed architecture, wherein packet processing may be distributed among several subsystems of the network element (e.g., line cards).
For many years, the management of communications networks using synchronous optical networking (SONET) and synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) multiplexing equipment has been primarily based on Transaction Language 1 (TL1) which uses a fixed Access Identifier (AID) representing a containment relationship (e.g., where “A>B” is read as “A contains B”). Some example SONET containment relationships may include:                OC-N>STS-1>VT (where VT=VT1.5, VT2, VT3, VT6)        OC-N>STS-Nc (where c=3, 12, or 48) (referred to as “concatenated” Synchronous Transport Signals (STS))        
In the case of concatenation, STS-Nc signals must begin on boundaries of 3, 12, or 48 in the concatenated frame OC-N. That is, in the case of SONET/SDH, by knowing a signal type (e.g., STS-1, VT2, STS-3c) and the TL1 AID structure (e.g., 1-3-2-6=Shelf 1, Slot 3, Port 2, STS-1 channel #3), one can unambiguously identify the target signal in the SONET/SDH frame structure.
Communications networks are now often configured as an Optical Transport Network (OTN) as defined by ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) Recommendation G.709. With OTN, relevant networking standards provide significantly flexible containment relationships for data frames, as compared with prior technologies.